Behind Rebel Lines

49 pages • 1 hour read

Behind Rebel Lines: The Incredible Story of Emma Edmonds, Civil War Spy

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1988

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Introduction

Before Reading

During Reading

After Reading

During Reading

Reading Questions & Paired Texts

Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

FOREWORD-CHAPTER 5

Reading Check

1. What word does Reit use in the Foreword to describe Emma’s ideals “long before [it] became popular”?

2. How many volunteers does President Lincoln request?

3. What name does Emma adopt for her enlistment?

4. How is Emma “classed” in her regiment?

5. In her regiment, with whom does Emma share her secret ?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What unique action did Emma carry out during the Civil War? Was she alone in this action or were there others like her?

2. Why does Emma visit the courthouse in Flint? What is she determined to do, and what has she checked in order to make sure that she is successful?

3. What are some of the tasks that women are allowed to do to help the war cause? How do Emma’s aspirations differ from the traditional gender roles?

4. What is Emma’s daily routine in Virginia? How does this routine rapidly change?

5. Describe Emma’s plan to enter the Confederate army. How does she decide to change her appearance? What is the outcome of her plan?

Paired Resources

“Militia Companies”

Pennsylvania’s Centre County Historical Society discusses the use of militia companies in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.
This information connects with the theme The Need to Make a Difference.
Based on the text as well as this resource, what does the use of militia companies say about the realities of the motivations of war?

“Phrenology”

Britannica shares an overview of the “pseudoscientific practice,” which has been wholly discredited in modern science.
The information in this resource connects with the theme Appearance Determines Treatment.
Based on this resource, why are incoming soldiers in the text given a phrenological test? How does this test either hurt or help Emma in her enlistment?

CHAPTERS 6-10

Reading Check

1. What difference does Emma notice between how the Confederate soldiers and the enslaved people eat?

2. What two items does Emma hide in her shoe?

3. What persona does Emma adopt on her second trip into the enemy encampment?

4. What is the “one thing [Emma] could believe in”? (Chapter 9)

5. Why does Emma study the clothing of enslaved people?

6. What two “souvenir[s]” does Emma take from her special missions?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Summarize Emma’s time in the enemy camp. How does she spend her time there and what does she learn?

2. Describe the period immediately after Emma’s mission. How do these weeks differ from the time prior to her mission?

3. Who is Allen Hall? How does Emma meet this person and what does he ask of her?

4. How does Emma enter the camp the second time? How is she received and how does she spend her time there?

5. What does Major McKee ask of Emma? How does this request aid in the completion of her mission?

Paired Resources

“Quaker Gun, Centreville, Virginia”

The Metropolitan Museum of Art museum shares a photograph from 1862 of a “Quaker gun” during the Civil War.
This image connects with the theme Appearance Determines Treatment.
According to the information accompanying the photo, why were “Quaker guns” used on the battlefield? What were the repercussions of this item?

“African Americans in the Civil War”

PBS’s American Experience provides an overview of the various ways that African Americans were involved in the Union and Confederate armies.
This information connects with the themes Appearance Determines Treatment and The Need to Make a Difference.
What were the various roles that African Americans played in the Civil War? Whom did they support and why?

CHAPTERS 11-16

Reading Check

1. According to General McClellan’s order, which vehicles are the only types that are permitted to go beyond the eastern part of the river?

2. How does Emma spend the latter part of her time off?

3. What item does Emma find in the Confederate soldier’s jacket?

4. Which item is “the last of Emma’s hard-won souvenirs”? (Chapter 14)

5. What illness does Emma eventually contract?

6. What life-changing information does Emma learn while in Cairo, Illinois?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Who is “Rebel”? With what type of work does Rebel help Emma?

2. Who becomes the commander of the Confederate armies? How does this person support the Confederate cause?

3. Who is General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson? How does this person shape Emma’s future missions as a part of her regiment?

4. Who is Mr. Mayberry? How is he received in Kentucky society?

5. Describe the role that Mr. Aylesworth plays in Emma’s life. What is the outcome of her mission with him?

6. Summarize Emma’s years after the end of the war. In particular, why does Emma petition the War Department and what is the outcome?

Recommended Next Reads

Guns for General Washington by Seymour Reit

Reit’s 1990 children’s book follows 19-year-old Will Knox as he supports General Washington’s army during the American Revolutionary War.
Shared themes include Appearance Determines Treatment and The Need to Make a Difference.
Shared topics include American battles, young people supporting wartime causes, and fiction for young readers.

Nurse and Spy in the Union Army by Emma Edmonds

Edmonds’s 1865 account of her time in the Civil War is one of the sources that Reit used as the basis for Behind Rebel Lines.
Shared themes include What Women Can Really Do, Appearance Determines Treatment, and The Need to Make a Difference.
Shared topics include Emma Edmonds, historical accounts of war, and defying gender norms.

A Soldier’s Secret: The Incredible True Story of Sarah Edmonds, Civil War Hero by Marissa Moss

This 2012 historical fiction account of Emma Edmonds’s story is told from her character’s first-person viewpoint.
Shared themes include What Women Can Really Do, Appearance Determines Treatment, and The Need to Make a Difference.
Shared topics include Emma Edmonds, historical accounts of war, and defying gender norms.
A Soldier’s Secret on SuperSummary

Reading Questions Answer Key

FOREWORD-CHAPTER 5

Reading Check

1. “[A] feminist” (Foreword)

2. 75,000 (Chapter 1)

3. Franklin Thompson (Chapter 1)

4. “[N]oncombatant” (Chapter 2)

5. Mrs. Butler (Chapter 3)

Short Answer

1. Reit’s Foreword notes that Emma Edmonds was a woman who dressed as a man in order to enlist and fight with the Union army during the Civil War. While women were not legally permitted to join in combat, Reit notes that historians have found many cases of women defying norms to fight for the cause important to them: “Over four hundred women, on both sides, fought in the war posing as men.” (Foreword)

2. Emma visits the courthouse so she can enlist in the Union army. She is dressed like a man to ensure that she will not be discovered, and she also made sure that there would not be a physical exam. She passes with ease, and after taking an oath to join the army, she is assigned as a field nurse. (Chapter 1)

3. Emma is aware that women are able to be involved in the war by working in peripheral jobs such as sewing/manufacturing clothes, working in city hospitals, or preparing supplies for war. Emma, however, wants to work on the front lines. (Chapter 1)

4. In her first year of enlistment, Emma’s routine is stable; she attends to the injured patients in the field hospital. This changes after she learns about the death of James, a former friend who was supposed to join the regiment; she decides she wants to “avenge” James and become a spy. (Chapters 2-3)

5. After passing a series of exams, Emma is officially accepted as a spy. She must come up with a plan on her own in order to infiltrate the enemy, and so she decides to pose as an enslaved person named “Cuff” by tinting her skin with silver nitrate, adopting special clothes and a wig, and changing her manner of speech. She is able to acquire the items needed, as well as fool her supervisor, before embarking on her mission. (Chapters 4-5)

CHAPTERS 6-10

Reading Check

1. Emma sees that the white Confederate soldiers have decent food and portions but that the enslaved soldiers must eat meager, low-quality food. (Chapter 6)

2. Paper and pencil to take note of the Confederate camp (Chapter 6)

3. Bridget O’Shea (Chapter 9)

4. The survival of the Union (Chapter 9)

5. She studies the clothing of enslaved people in case a future mission might require the use of another disguise. (Chapter 10)

6. An Enfield Carbine gun and a horse (Chapters 8, 10)

Short Answer

1. Dressed as her enslaved person persona “Cuff,” Emma is able to join a group of other enslaved persons and infiltrate the camp. On the first day, she works hard labor, taking note of her surroundings; on the second day, she works in the kitchen, eavesdropping for information. She overhears a peddler who really was a Confederate spy. She is able to make her escape at the end of the second day. (Chapters 6-7)

2. Five weeks after her mission, the Union army conducts a major attack, forcing the Confederates to retreat. As a result, Emma is busy in the hospital, supporting the ill and wounded soldiers. (Chapter 8)

3. Allen is a Confederate soldier whom Emma, dressed as Bridget O’Shea, meets while on the way to the enemy encampment. As he is dying of typhoid fever, Emma takes care of him for some time; in return, he requests that she bring a watch of his to Confederate soldier Major McKee. (Chapter 9)

4. Emma is spotted by a Confederate soldier, who invites her into the camp to see Major McKee. As she waits for the Major, she observes her surroundings, deciding this time to keep the information in her head as opposed to writing it down. (Chapter 10)

5. Major McKee asks Emma to accompany them to the cabin where Allen died. She agrees, leading them to the house, and then acting as the “look out” while the soldiers return to their camp. After learning important information about an upcoming attack, she rides back to her regiment. (Chapter 10)

CHAPTERS 11-16

Reading Check

1. Ambulances (Chapter 11)

2. Volunteering in the hospital (Chapter 12)

3. Important documents that she delivers to the Union lines (Chapter 12)

4. A Confederate major’s sword (Chapter 14)

5. “Swamp fever” (malaria) (Chapter 15)

6. That Frank Thompson (her Union soldier alias) has been listed as a deserter (Chapter 15)

Short Answer

1. After her second mission, Emma is used as a messenger for the regiment. Rebel, a pony given to Emma by the Union Army’s commanding officers, becomes her companion as she travels in the area, even coming to her aid during numerous enemy encounters. (Chapter 11)

2. Around the time of Emma’s furlough, General Robert E. Lee is made the commander of the Confederate armies; he strengthens the Confederate army and causes the Union soldiers to retreat after the Seven Days’ Battles. (Chapter 12)

3. General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson is the Confederate commander that Emma’s regiment is forced to face. Because of her previous espionage work, she is asked to once again spy; as a result, she decides to re-adopt her persona of the enslaved person “Cuff” and take on the disguise of an enslaved woman who is a laundress. (Chapter 12)

4. Mr. Charles Mayberry is Emma’s persona during her time in Kentucky. She is tasked with finding out who the spies are in Louisville, Kentucky, a formerly neutral state that recently sided with the Union but has strong Confederate sympathies. Overall, Mr. Mayberry is well-received in Louisville society. (Chapter 13)

5. Mr. Aylesworth is a Confederate sympathizer and bookstore owner whose confidence Emma (as Mr. Mayberry) is able to gain. After she tells him that she wants to join the Confederate army, Aylesworth leads her to his Confederate contact; with the support of Emma’s regiment, Emma contributes to the successful capture of the traitor and secret plans. (Chapter 14)

6. Following the end of the war, Emma writes her memoir before returning to her hometown in Canada. After marrying an old acquaintance, she moves back to the US, living in various states before having children. She is still disturbed by Frank Thompson’s label of deserter of war; she petitions the War Department, asking for the restoration of her military rights, an honorable discharge, and any backpay she is owed. In 1884, the court granted her request in full. (Chapter 16)